A new driver
took over his bus
clean,
open-faced,
good-natured,
knew how to swing
a conversation.
Sure, he still liked
his cigs,
the pokies,
but he doesn’t touch
the booze.
Not any more.
He’s high
on Jesus now
and Marge.
And look how she
leans into him
as if she really belongs.
And perhaps this time
she really does.
I don’t know what Jesus had in mind
when he said, Seek and ye shall find,
probably not these soy and almond protein oats
that soothe the tummy, titillate the throat
whose disappearance from the supermarket shelves
threaten to dismember my notion of self;
but I think He would be pleased I got off my arse
& visited various supermarkets, unafraid to ask
do you stock any of these, flashing my iphone pic
of the last one I had, but their reply is quick:
sorry, they say, you could try other stores
so I haul along my sorry arse to try one more
and lo and behold! joy leapt in my throat
before me sat 5 packets of those soy, almond oats.
That tall,
leafless
stick of a plant
I thought needed water
I tended each morning
the constant gardener
till the real gardener came back from leave
and told me it was dead
slicing a stalk to show me
it was hollow as a straw.
All this time I lavished my love on this plant
and had killed it
& I couldn’t help but see
the seeds of a parable here
one that Jesus or Buddha could have touched on.
It just needed cultivating, that’s all.
Perhaps the stars weren’t aligned.
Perhaps it’s in the DNA.
Either way the reboot sags,
flaccid as a spent condom.
It walks around the ABC studio
with its hands clasped behind its back,
that gesture of defeat,
It is laboured, lassitudinous, much in need
of a cattle prod up the ass, as my old
friend, twelve years in, would say.
A bit severe perhaps.
It’s lost its zest, its zing,
It’s dead on its feet.
Even Jesus couldn’t resuscitate it.
Was Jesus a funny guy?
Would he have laughed at my pelican story?
Had he a sense of humor?
And if so, was it the self-deprecating kind
or the sort that skewered the pomposity of others?
You can’t tell me with those twelve disciples alone
with all those foibles
he didn’t have sufficient material to work with.
My guess is he compiled a joke book which the early Church
suppressed.
Did he do stand-up on the mount where he gave,
in his more serious side, the Sermon on the Beatitudes?
Humour should have been amongst them.
A person with a sense of humour is in contact with his humanity.
Even the donkey and hyenas know how to laugh.
The images of Buddha show him with a rollicking belly.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful but where are the images
of the jolly Jesus?
I bet if they met he would have shared a laugh with Buddha,
even exchanged jokes over a coffee or two.
I wait for the record to be rectified.
An ampler, more approachable sort of god.
I was walking along the Semaphore jetty
when a roly-poly guy from the Gospel Ministry
waddled up to me with a pamphlet, asking:
Are you a friend of Jesus, friend?
I said that I was but I didn’t know about
my web-footed friend almost at my side, but
if you threw him a fish I’m sure that he
would be too.
Now I don’t know whether Jesus had a sense
of humor but this guy didn’t even crack a smile
John Malone 